Mythology What is it?

Scripture

It's just a myth.  Unfortunately for the beginner, in many languages the word myth has come to mean an untruth, even a lie.  If you think about it, I am sure you will see that the reason for this lies in the struggle between Christianity and the beliefs it sought to replace.  We will call this use of the word the colloquial one ['in common parlance'].  The beginner has to be careful  to be aware of this distinction, realizing that it embodies a particular prejudice.

We are right; they are wrong.  In order to do any -ology, we have to avoid holding any preconceived ideas. The idea that our own belief is correct and that of another's is false often conceals a form of  bigotry called ethnocentrism, the feeling that our own culture is the best one.

This idea prevents us from seeing clearly, and so we will actively try to adopt the position called cultural relativism. That is, we will view all cultures, past and present, as having practices, beliefs and values that are worthwhile.   After all, the definition of a culture is a way of life.  If it exists or ever existed, it must be because it was successful, if only for a time.

It's about time.  We will use the expression BCE (Before the Contemporary Era) and the CE (Contemporary Era) instead of the Christian BC and AD when we mention a date, in order to be consistent with that relative view.
 

Dates Using BCE instead of BC  (Before Christ) and CE instead of AD (anno domini, Latin meaning "in the year of the Lord")  is not just an idiosyncrasy but a trend that has been taking hold for at least 35 years.  You will find that many modern writers, David Adams Leeming, author of  The World of Myth, among them, have adopted this form. Unhappily, the administrators of some cultural institutions feel the general public (read:  the tourist paying in dollars) is not ready for a blatant rejection of the Christian form.  Nor are some older professors  who seem to misunderstand the whole idea, thinking that somehow another sort of sectarian system is being foisted on them.  Neither group realizes that the BC/AD system is not an ancient one. Do you think this is a cause worth arguing? We could use BP ('before the present' cf. ago) but that is only suitable and useful when everyone knows that we are speaking within a common time frame -- it's not very useful in books and papers that are intended for longtime consultation. It is most often used in regard to the carbon-dating of artifacts. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hide and Go Seek  Begin your research as usual; in the reference section where you will find  Mythology of All the Races, a multi-volume collection of beliefs and their basis in mythology.  Its index volume provides an excellent tool for beginning your quest.  One set is kept in the Reference section, (and an almost complete set is in the stacks) along with other collections especially those with illustrations such as Campbell's Atlas of Mythology in 5 volumes . Look there, too if  the words Dictionary or Encyclopedia appear in the title.  However, myths are also to be found in the Religion section under the sub-headings of the various different faiths.  Notice that the myths of our culture are often termed Scripture, as are those of other cultures when the written text itself is seen as sacred.  Myths are found in collections often entitled Myths of the Ancient World or Tales of  Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece.  These books are found in the QC section of our library.   Because of  inherent or built-in prejudices in our culture, you will find myths of the various cultural categories such as Native American, Inuit, South American, Caribbean, Africa and its separate regions, areas or countries, China and the various other headings that designate cultures, past and present filed in sections concerning geography, politics and tourism.  Sometimes you will find them in collections called something like Legends of the Sioux  or Ancient Lore of the Whatchamacallits, although this type of patronizing designation is vanishing.   Myths form the basis for various so-called esoteric systems or schools of secret teachings.  They will be found in books on Voodoo (Vaudun, Santeria, Macumba ), Kabbalah, Magyk, Witchcraft, Alchemy, Tantric Hinduism and Tantric Buddhism, etc.     Since the most ancient information we humans have about any subject is told in myth, books on every subject from Dogs to Chemistry often begin with a historical view introduced by a myth or two.  Are myths literature?    In some cases, myths and legends may be disguised as literature.  Joseph Campbell calls literature about the knights of the Round Table, Creative Mythology.  In a decadent form ,myths like these, and all other types, too, may have become folktales.   Sometimes we find a myth of one culture preserved in its country of origin, but turned into a folk or "fairytale" in another land.  A  Japanese myth tells about a wounded crane that became a bride willing to spin silk for her human husband as long as he does not invade her private rooms during the day.  What tale does this remind you of? Why are so many myths and folktales from different cultures so similar? How does myth relate to literature?  Is it a form of fiction?  No.  but  OK or maybe,  yes but ... .   Once you find myths about your topic, then what?  You will need to find books on the theories about mythology, no matter what topic you choose to investigate.  Before the nineteenth century, most Western scholars saw myths as supersition or fantasy.  Then the trend was to see them as metaphors for the human condition or as symbolic of the human psyche.  Sir James Frazer, Robert Graves, C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, G. S. Kirk, S. Lowry, S. Freud and Otto Rank, C. Levi-Strauss are the names of some of the experts in these areas.  Graham Hancock  is a contemporary researcher who thinks that myths do not necessarily refer to psychological or spiritual matters at all, but rather to actual events in early human history.  Transliteration The names of mythological figures usually derive from languages other than English and often were/are written in scripts unlike our own.  Not only that, but ways of transposing writing from one language to another may have changed over time.  Bear this in mind as you hunt down names; you will probably have to try many variants.  For example, the Titan, Cronus may appear as Kronos or Chronos.   Balder is Baldr is Baldur <  you will have to find them all! The Tibetan designation for Avalokiteshvara (which may not show up with an h in older transliterations of this Sanskrit word) may be written in English as Chenrezig, Chenresik, Chenresi or Chenrezi.    You will have to be imaginative to succeed. Chinese has been written in English in at least 3 different ways in just my own lifetime! You will need to think of lots of synonyms to track down your topic successfully.  What one writer may refer to as grain, another may call cereal.  You will have to try sub-categories like rice, corn, wheat, rye, barley, oats, etc.   In a case similar to this, don't forget to check out products such as bread, beer, ale, etc.    Good hunting!

Mythos is a Greek word that is related to our word mouth.  It was used to designate the plot of a story, and primarily denotes that which is transmitted orally, and, since in pre-literate societies this process required the faultless memorization often by a specialized group of individuals such as priests, the stories themselves took on an especially sacred quality.  Their very nature is mysteriously tautological. 

It has been said that as a dream is to the individual, the myth is to the people/culture.
You could also say, however, that all  stories have some mythic qualities.

Indeed there exists a continuum of literature (but are myths literature?) that could be diagrammed as a triangle with myths at the apex.  Next would come legends that are traditional tales that have some historical basis.  Some stories about Arthur, King of Britain fall into this category.  Joseph Campbell called the literary forms of those, Creative Mythology.

It is interesting to note that when the sacred nature of a myth is denied, it is often termed a legend, ie. Legends of the Iroqouis.  Another suspect word is lore which acknowledges that there is special information here but of a somewhat  inferior sort.

Then there are folk tales, often  referred to as fairy tales because of the mysterious elements in them.
They could be considered orphaned myths;  the culture that bore them has vanished.
The people that retell them no longer have access to the significance of  the symbols  and motifs that comprise them.  Some examples are Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk.
In the early 1800's, the Brothers Grimm went out into the German countryside and gathered, classified and numbered many of these.   This work provided a framework upon which folklorists and ethnographers continue to build.

Andrew Lang's collections called the Blue Fairy Book, the Yellow Fairy Book, etc. which mixed folk tales of different cultures in a single volume extended our knowledge of these.

Beauty and the Beast, embellished by the French author Charles Perreault, and other stories of this type would appear further down near the triangle's base, below Creative Mythology.  Here artistic license has been brought into play.  That is, the story could be said to have an author.  It is now a work of fiction.  American cultural values have contributed to the further erosion of the  mythological material as it passed through the Disney studios on its way to children today.  You would do well to compare the various versions of any much-told fairy tale. 

Fables are cautionary tales in which certain types of people are disguised as animals that are regarded as embodying particular qualities.  To Aesop, for example, is attributed the story of the Grasshopper and the Ant.  Lafontaine added to the collection and put many of them into rhyme for French children.  The Uncle Remus stories about Br'er Rabbit are African tales that were Americanized and introduced to the general public by Joel Chandler Harris.

Where in the pyramidal structure would we put  so-called urban legends?  These are more in the nature of rumours, the worst kind of gossip.  Everyone has heard the "Welcome to the world of AIDS" story.   These are usually presented as the truth, something that actually happened to a friend of  a friend's cousin. 

Until works like Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough or Robert Graves' The White Goddess were published, myths were usually found in collections organized as to culture of origin.  The 12- volume, Mythology of All Races  (WE HAVE TWO SETS) is arranged that way.  It is left to the reader to search through the monumental index volume [THE INDEX VOLUME OF THE SET IN THE BL STACKS IS ON RESERVE TO PROTECT IT.  YOU WILL NEED TO REQUEST IT.] if we want to explore a single symbol, a type of deity or a motif.

A motif is an elemental theme, such as The Animal Bridegroom. An example of this is the folktale, Beauty and the Beast.  Sometimes the young girl is married to a mysterious or unseen husband because she has rejected previous suitors.  In this case, the motif may take the form of a variant known as The Demon Lover.   The latter is exemplified in Brad Stoker's fictional tale of Dracula.

The Roman poet, Ovid ( 1 CE) in The Metamorphoses retold many Greek myths on this motif, the most complete of which is Cupid and Psyche.  It is an example of the epic form in which the hero must accomplish a quest.  (Many contemporary video games of the puzzle-solving adventure type are based on this type of myth.  So is the Star Wars series.)  In the case of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, it is the female Psyche who is the hero.

E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art:

"Among the Florentine artists of the second half of the fifteenth century who strove for a solution to this question was the
painter Sandro Botticelli (1446-1510). One of his most famous pictures represents not a Christian legend but a classical
myth -- the Birth of Venus. The classical poets had been known all through the Middle Ages, but only at the time of the
Renaissance, when the Italians tried so passionately to recapture the former glory of Rome, did the classical myths become
popular among educated laymen. To these men, the mythology of the admired Greeks and Romans represented something
more than gay and pretty fairy-tales. They were so convinced of the superior wisdom of the ancients that they believed
these classical legends must contain some profound and mysterious truth. "
 

• Link to Birth of Venus:  See Aeolus carrying Psyche while Venus appears on her shell.

PANTHEONS:  From the Greek for "all gods", it is the complete collection of deities of a culture including their inter-relationship.   Homer's (c. 750 BCE) two epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey are the earliest source of the pantheon of the Greeks.  Hesiod's Theogony (c. 700 BCE) and the much later Roman poet Virgil's (c. 20 BCE) literary epic,  The Aeneid  and Ovid's (1 CE) Metamorphoses are two other sources.

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